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eStores Finally Beat Real Stores for Holiday Shoppers

ClickFox, a big data firm that specializes in consumer insight, released a new report that says 62 percent of customers plan to do their shopping online this year. The reason: it’s just more convenient, but actually better than going to a physical store.

“Consumers have become adept at identifying the easiest customer service resolution,” said Marco Pacelli, CEO, ClickFox. “The findings of our research should serve as a wake-up call for those in the retail industry: if they continue to fail to provide stellar in-store customer service, they risk losing customers to online competitors. As we’ve seen with analysis of more than 12 billion customer touch points annually, when retailers fail to resolve customer service inquiries at the first point of service, companies can expect increased service overhead and decreased customer loyalty as consumers are forced to utilize multiple service channels to resolve their issues.”

Seventy-two percent of the 213 participants cited a “positive service experience “as the main reason they’ll be spending their money in eShops this holiday season. Only 23 percent of the customers ClickFox polled said that the service-service aspect is the main reason they’ll be making their purchases online.

Not surprisingly, 57 percent cited competitive pricing as the greatest factor in selecting their shopping destinations. But customer service came in as the second highest priority, with a 32 percent share of the votes. Half of the participants reported negative experiences with sales floor representatives, and 41 went as far as saying this is the “the greatest point of negative customer service experience” behind call center kerfuffle.

ClickFox is not just preaching to retailers that they have to improve their service levels – the company is also offering them the tools needed to accomplish this goal. The firm released the latest version of its analytics platform earlier this year, introducing new features that get data faster to the decision maker’s desk.

About Maria Deutscher

Maria Deutscher is a staff writer for SiliconANGLE covering all things enterprise and fresh. Her work takes her from the bowels of the corporate network up to the great free ranges of the open-source ecosystem and back on a daily basis, with the occasional pit stop in the world of end-users. She is especially passionate about cloud computing and data analytics, although she also has a soft spot for stories that diverge from the beaten track to provide a more unique perspective on the complexities of the industry.